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Everyone pretty much knows the importance of being tall when dating in the straight community. It explains why so many lie about their own height in online dating. But what about among gay & lesbians? Does being tall make you more attractive or less appealing? Do they lie about their height too? By analyzing thousands of interactions between Coffee Meets Bagel’s gay men and lesbians, we have the scoop on how height affects attraction for same-sex couples. (Take a guess before you read the rest!)

All Men Lie (but some lie more than others)

On average, the gay men of CMB say they are 5’9.7″ tall; in comparison, according to the National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey, men in the United States between the ages of 20 and 39 are only 5’9.5″ tall. This difference, albeit small, is significant at 1% using a t-test. So either the gay population on CMB is just taller than the average men in the US, or they exaggerate their height slightly. It’s probably the latter but that’s ok because this just proved that gay men lie less than straight men!

So is being tall “good” or “bad”?

Hot as he is, I don’t think he has the answers. A statistical model, on the other hand, can tell us how often gay men like their Bagels, depending on both of their heights. (ok, bad joke – sorry – at least he is nice to look at). We can illustrate this with a few hypothetical guys of particular heights. Gay men like men who are at least as tall as themselves: if his Bagel is shorter than he is, each inch shorter decreases the odds of being liked by 7%. If his Bagel is taller than he is, this increases the odds of being liked by less than 1%. As a Bagel, being taller than your match is not much better than being his height, but being the same height is preferable to being shorter. The vertices in the plot represent the point where each guy is the same height as his Bagel; you can see that each of the three guys likes Bagels to the right (taller) better than Bagels to the left (shorter). Let’s look at this for gay men of all heights. Gay men prefer their Bagels to be at least as tall as they are (above the line), and dislike it when their Bagels are shorter than they are (below the line). Given this, does it make sense for gay men to lie about their height? Saying you are an inch taller than you really are doesn’t make you that much more attractive to guys who are already shorter than you, but it does make you more attractive to a guy who is really an inch taller than you. This is because with the fib, the two of you are now the same height. That is, until he finds out that you lied about your height. What else did you lie about, hmm? Now it’s lesbians’ turn; do they lie about their height? if they do, does it make them more attractive?

How much do women lie about their height?

Yes: women exaggerate too! Straight women exaggerate about the same amount (half an inch) as straight men, while lesbians exaggerate by more than an inch. This extreme exaggeration makes sense only if lesbians strongly prefer tall women. Then, they would have the same reason to lie as men: it makes them more attractive to their desired partners. And since height is generally considered a valuable characteristic, this seems pretty plausible. To find out if lesbians really do prefer tall women, we’ll use another model and illustrate it with a few hypothetical women of particular heights.

How tall does she like her Bagel?

Hold the phone: lesbians of all heights prefer short women! If her Bagel is shorter, each inch shorter increases the odds of being liked by 4%; if her Bagel is taller, each inch taller decreases the odds of being liked by 2%. Also note that the lines are parallel: short women are more picky about their Bagels than tall women, because they know they are popular and can afford to be selective. This same pattern holds for lesbians of all heights: no matter how tall she is, she prefers the shortest bagel possible. This is just like straight men’s preference for women’s age: the younger, the better, no matter how old he is. But this is totally backwards: why would gay women inflate their height, if their partners like shorter women better? I’m going to skate over to some seriously thin ice, but hear me out. Maybe this is the result of variation in gender identity. People who identify as more masculine may prefer shorter partners, while people who identify as more feminine may prefer taller partners. If this is the case, and if height is a masculine trait, then the exaggerated height and the preference for short people imply that CMB’s lesbians may identify more strongly with a masculine gender identity. There is some evidence that shorter gay men are more likely to be bottoms and taller men are more likely to be tops, but this certainly doesn’t prove anything about lesbians. This is just my own wild guess: as a heterosexual, married man, I am pretty clueless. Please leave a comment to tell me this is totally bogus, and why you think lesbians exaggerate their own height, yet prefer shorter women.

Can everyone win in musical chairs? or will someone be left out in the cold?

In my previous post, we found that straight men and women have mutually compatible preferences: they both like the man to be taller. Are gay men’s and lesbians’ preferences similarly compatible? Or is it like musical chairs, where someone will be left out when the music stops? Gay men like taller men, but not much more than men their own height; therefore, if every gay man had a Bagel his own height, everyone would be happy. Even if it doesn’t work out that way, it’s at least possible that everyone gets what he wants – in terms of height, at least. However, lesbians are unique in uniformly preferring short Bagels, no matter how tall they themselves are. Does this mean that no one will date tall lesbians? Not really, because lesbians’ preference for short women is extremely weak. To show this, I measured “strength of height preference” as the Euclidean distance between two numbers: the change in odds of Liking if a taller Bagel is 1” taller, and the change in odds of Liking if a shorter Bagel is 1” shorter. This summarizes each group’s preferences for taller and shorter Bagels from two numbers to one, allowing an easy visual comparison. Straight women have far and away the strongest preferences about height, while lesbians have the weakest. This is good news for tall lesbians; if all lesbians insisted on having a short partner, the tall ones would be out of luck. Fortunately for them, lesbians rely mostly on factors other than height in evaluating their Bagels. If you enjoyed this post, check out how straight men and women feel about height.

At some point in your life, you’ve probably wondered if you’re living up to your sex potential.
Am I getting it enough? Have I been adventurous? Why can’t I stop imagining threesomes?
And most importantly, does anyone else worry about this stuff?
Well, gay single men on Coffee Meets Bagel have spoken out, and the good news is in—you’re not alone. Check out these 10 Sex Secrets, and see how you match up!
If you enjoyed this post and want to see more dating stats, check out 8 Body Confessions from Gay Singles.

It’s difficult to pinpoint exactly when we become “ourselves.”
I knew I was gay from a young age. I didn’t have the vocabulary to understand it at the time; it was always some puzzle that I put off unraveling. It wasn’t my identity, but it still managed to shift the sands beneath my feet whenever I thought I had found stable footing.
For a lot of LGBT* folks, identity is a constant negotiation between the way we see ourselves and they way we feel we’re supposed to be perceived. We try to draw lines separating our family’s values from our own opinions, society’s gaze from the reflection in the mirror. We spend a lot of time believing that there is no real way to “be yourself.”
Things change when you start living on your own. You can feel the eyes lifting off of your back. You finally have space to breathe. It’s like breaking out of a glass coffin.
College is often referred to as our “formative years,” and there is real truth to that. For most of us, it inevitably brings the ceaseless search for love — a journey that turns out to be more about self-discovery than actual match making.

Validation

Growing up, I never really let myself confront that sinking feeling in the back of my mind. There didn’t seem to be any point in accepting that I was gay if I didn’t have anyone to “be gay” with—gay friends, a boyfriend, a drag mother. Okay, I was actually terrified of drag queens back then, but now I can’t get enough.
I had never met a gay person before in my life, at least not that I knew of. I was only vaguely aware that other people like me existed. There was nothing grounding the insidious feeling of difference in reality. It was difficult to ignore, but impossible to embrace.
I had accepted that I wasn’t living a whole life—no matter how many little moments of happiness I found when I was younger, they always fell just short of the threshold that would bring contentedness. I felt like I was lying all the time, to my friends, my family, and of course, myself. I wanted to get away from everyone that knew me so I could hit reset and start living honestly. I had my tunnel vision set on college.
It didn’t disappoint.
Maybe it’s the clean slate, or the familial distance, or the first real gulps of alcohol, but somehow we newly-unleashed-burgeoning-adults were finally able to find authenticity away from home. The social strictures of high school seemed to (mostly) fade away. Friend groups shifted, styles changed, and fantastic personalities emerged.
In my first week I walked by a Pride Student Union display, excitedly supported by throng of students. Within a couple months I had fallen in with an out and proud group of guys that quickly became some of the best friends I’d ever had.
I didn’t come out to them then, that was an insidious process of letting down walls that would take much more time. Nonetheless, I couldn’t help but gravitate towards their complete comfort with themselves and each other.
My first night at a gay club (masquerading as the token straight friend) was a transformative experience.I was surrounded by all different kinds of guys—reserved barflies, neon-haired flirts, drag performers, more than a few pole dancers—but if they were united by anything, it was the simple fact that they just did not care what anyone else thought of them. My old anxiety over identity felt like a lifetime ago. Suddenly that intangible concept of desire and longing was real and smiling at me from a dozen faces.
I wasn’t the only one looking. I wasn’t the only one lost.
That feeling I refused to let bubble to the surface was rising all around me. For the first time, it made sense to accept the inevitable.
My feelings were real, valid, and shared.

Empathy

One of the biggest things holding people back from announcing their orientation is the knowledge that the people they tell will never truly understand the depth and nuance of the experience. Even positive responses can be disappointing, but more importantly, it’s not always safe to come out to a community that has no way of empathizing.
Dating can be an important ritual in college, if not for sexual satiation, then for the compassionate emotional connection. There is an understanding we search for, beyond the hookups (though those are nice too), that is undeniably liberating to find in another person.
For gay people, the level of empathy shared between partners is both heightened and necessitated by the disconnect we’ve lived with our entire lives.
Sexual orientation is relational, it is defined by your attraction (or lack thereof) for another human being. It doesn’t exist in a vacuum. That’s why for many people, the feelings they’ve acknowledged their whole life don’t become “real” until they culminate in actually being with another person. That was certainly the case for me.
It was only after meeting an amazing guy, dating him, and allowing myself to express all the pent up feelings I’d been hoarding all my life that I was able to say the words. And it was liberating beyond belief, even more so to hear that he had gone through exactly the same journey.
After that, we didn’t have to talk much about being gay. The empathy was felt.
When two people share uncommonly similar struggles with identity, even the words that go unspoken feel decidedly reassuring.

Solidarity

Maybe I’m valorizing the college dating scene. I went to a massive, fairly liberal school and I was lucky to be surrounded with like-minded people. Whether I was looking for love or grasping for understanding, friends, boyfriends, and sages of gay wisdom seemed to keep popping out of the woodwork.
I woke up in the center of a network I had never set out to create, but was nonetheless grateful to have surrounding me. Somewhere in-between the flirtatious winky-faces, the late night talks and the long hard looks in the mirror, my identity solidified itself. The ground became stable.
I become myself.

Online communication can be a cryptic labyrinth of hidden meanings at times. You can’t see the squinting eyes, the shrugging shoulders, or the nervous sweating—who knows if that tongue-sticking-out emoji is really sincere?
Gay singles have been just as lost as the rest of the world when it comes to decoding the truth behind those digital messages, but now it’s time to come out of the dark!
Here’s a somewhat-serious beginner’s guide to decoding the messages gay men are sending to figure out what they are really trying to say:

The First Message:

He Says: He means:

He Says: He means:

Compliments:

He Says: He means:
He Says: He means:
He Says: He means:

Questions:

He Asks: He means: He Asks: He means:
He Asks: He means:

Celebrity References:

He Says: He means:
He Says: He means:
He Says: He means:

The Next Step:

He Says: He means:
Ok, so maybe this guide is a little presumptuous—but if you follow it to the letter you’ll find that it’s right at least 15% of the time. Statistically speaking.
The fact is, even this self-appointed expert doesn’t have all the answers. You’re talking to a real, live, sincere (probably cute) human being, so keep on chatting away and get to really know them.
You’ll find the truth between the text messages.Did you enjoy this post? Then make sure to check out 8 Body Confessions From Gay Single Men.

About Coffee Meets Bagel (CMB): CMB is a free dating service that helps members make meaningful connections. It’s designed for busy singles who want to find something real with little or no effort.

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